Ellen DeGeneres has announced she’s cut a popular gospel singer from her talk show, after footage emerged in which the woman can be heard calling gay people ‘perverted’.
Kim Burrell, who was due to appear on the popular daytime program on January 5, made the comments while preaching at a church in Houston, Texas, last month.
In footage of the sermon being circulated online, the 44-year-old says, “The perverted homosexual spirit, and the spirit of delusion and confusion, it has deceived many men and women.
“You, as a man, you open your mouth and take a man’s penis in your face — you are perverted. You are a woman and will shake your face in another woman’s breast, you are perverted.”
Burrell was due to perform 'I See Victory' from the film Hidden Figures alongside superstar singer/producer Pharrell Williams, however DeGeneres posted a tweet overnight, saying the performance has been cancelled.
Burrell's comments caused outrage online, just days ahead of her scheduled performance.
While not mentioning Burrell's name, Williams earlier tweeted, "I condemn hate speech of any kind. There is no room in this world for any kind of prejudice."
However, in a Facebook live video, Burrell said she will "make no excuses or apologies" for her comments, as she claims she never personally attacked anyone and was simply exercising her responsibility to reflect the teachings of her church.
"Don't you understand I know that people are going to be mad? I have to do what God tells me to do, and I'm passionate about what I do and when people take it personal - especially when we've never met - you know that the enemy is setting that up," she said.
"To every person that is dealing with the homosexual spirit, that has it, I love you because God loves you. But God hates the sin in you and me, anything that is against the nature of God."
It's unclear whom she was referring as "enemies".
Top Comments
I disagree with her, and really is there a need for her to speak that explicitly. I wouldn't go up to a married woman and say "I believe you have taken your husband's penis in your vagina - you pervert" everyone's sexual acts sound perverted if you want to spell it out that way.
BTW is this woman married? If not the question I would like to ask her is she a virgin? Because I'm over these hypocritical religious people who are against homosexuality and spout the bible but seem to forget that in most religions you are not allowed to have sex before marriage yet most of them ignore that rule. About time somebody starts raking their love life over the coals and points out their hypocrisy if it turns out they aren't virgins.
But here is the thing on one hand I disagree with her, but on the other hand we live in a mixed up society where we are supposed to tolerate and respect religious faiths (and our tax funds go towards them) that have at the core of their faiths the belief that sex before marriage is a sin, and that homosexuality is a sin as well as other oppressive and sexist rules.
Obviously as a society there will be a conflict if on one hand we decry anyone who speaks out against homosexuality or sex before marriage or supports sexism etc, yet on the other hand we continue to pour money into religions that are sexist and homophobic through tax breaks, school funding and other tax payer funding and through our groceries (such as halal certification).
If we keep enabling sexist and homophobic religions through our tax dollars (and now our groceries) and expect everyone to "respect" these religions then obviously sexism and homophobia is going to exist.
At Christmas I saw on TV some kind of religious ceremony that the Pope was presiding over, I noticed that all the clergy on stage with him (I'm assuming they were cardinals) were all men, in fact at least one was black, but no women, because the Catholic Church doesn't allow women to be priests, cardinals or Pope. If they said a black man couldn't be Pope there would be an outcry (and rightly so) yet the TV broadcasts this display of sexism, and my tax payer money funds the Catholic Church in Australia.
Then I go to the grocery store and just about everything is halal certified which means it's virtually impossible not to contribute to a religion that doesn't allow female imams or ayatollahs, and that segregates women from men in the mosque. Once again if they segregated white people from black there would be an outcry, yet if I object to my grocery purchases going into this sexist religion I get called an Islamiphobe. Yet in the same breath the people who call me an Islamophobe claim to support women's rights and gay rights.
The Catholic Church and Islam aren't the only sexist religions but these are just two examples (I would be here all day if I went through all the sexism in religion).
Of course there is sexism everywhere but the difference is legally workplaces, political parties etc are not allowed to say no female leaders, yet religions are allowed to get away with this due to a loophole in the anti discrimination laws. We should be lobbying for all funding removed from religions that do not allow their head leaders to be female. So if the Catholic Church does not expressly change their rules to say that a woman is eligible to become Pope, and the Islamic religion does not allow female Ayatollahs etc then chop goes their funding. Same with all the other religions. And it has to be something expressly in writing, not some ambigious vague statement which can be interpreted any which way (which the Pope is famous for doing).
If my workplace said no female CEOs are allowed they would be sued and there would be an outcry, yet my tax and my grocery purchases are chipping in for sexist/homophobic religions who do not allow female leadership.
These religions are committing Gender Apartheid, and our tax dollars shouldn't be contributing to it.
Im all for exercising free speech but i think this was very ill timed. Especially since she is going on the most famous lesbians tv show. Not cool. So not cool.